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Photo Oops: History's Worst Political Photo Ops

On the 1960 campaign trail, New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, who once said that “No man can hope to be elected in his state without being photographed eating a hot dog at Nathan’s Famous,” was caught on film chowing down rather enthusiastically at the Coney Island stand, alongside GOP candidate Richard Nixon’s VP pick, Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., and New York Attorney General Louis Lefkowitz. Democratic contender John F. Kennedy was so scarred by the photo—he “shook his head in disgust” upon seeing it—that, despite a penchant for Howard Johnson’s hot dogs and soda, he refused to be photographed eating them.